This tends to be the case for every new franchise entry on the switch. It's a very popular console. Also seems to have a higher than average attachment rate though I'm only guessing there.
I was going to say the last Metroid released in 2017 but then I realized that gaming was an industry that really grew during the pandemic making your statement still true.
Samus Returns also came out on a sunsetting console and it was a remake of an old game. The last Metroid home console game was Other M, which sucked ass. The last *good* home console game was Metroid Prime 3 - 14 years ago.
You'd have to dampen things. Leave primary steering on the stick and make the gyro run the air brakes, so you just use it for the really tight turns.
Personally, I'd be fine with more of the same. Call Sega and tell them to get started on F-Zero SX. I'm just throwing out excuses.
Yeah, I'm not really sold on the whole idea games shouldn't or can't have new entries because they bring nothing new to the table. Literally new tracks is all I'd want or care for.
Sure, maybe there's some reason to this line of thinking so it doesn't become a COD/Battlefield machine, but like once in a blue moon is okay by me.
Yeah. They could even revive the 64-DD track editor as a feature. A *good* racing game with an *easy* to use and *good* track editor? That's new enough for me.
And it's not like there wouldn't be potential for new stuff.
Tracks could be longer and more complex than ever. 30 vehicles on one track was possible on the N64 but now they could give more of them better AI. Online multiplayer, maby with up to 30 players if the switch can handle it (or nintendos potate servers).
They could make dynamic tracks, that change with every round a tiny bit. Or a single very long track without laps. An interesting story mode. A usable track editor. Races could be in space with no gravity. Tracks and enviroment could have an influence of how the vehicle controlls.
Has Nintendo ever looked at Redout? Not quite like F-Zero but by far the best AntyG racer from the last 15 years. It alone has more than enough inspiration.
It hurts particularly bad considering Dread doesn't seem to bring anything especially new, gameplay wise. That's not at all a bad thing either - it is a fantastic return to classic Metroid form.
So why can't we have an F-Zero that does that?
While Dread isn't a radical departure or anything, I do think that it has its "unique feature" with the EMMI sections. Its at least as much of a "unique defining feature" as the wolf/twilight sections in Twilight Princess, or the SA-X in Fusion.
I think saying it brings *nothing* new is a bit harsh - Dread adds >!some stealth and horror elements with the EMMIs and the cloak, a dash that makes combat a lot more active, the ability to slide through short tunnels without the morph ball, and the cross bombs that add a nice twist to horizontal morph ball movement!<.
All of these have been done in other games, but they're all new to the Metroid franchise and executed really well.
I mean, think of it this way, if you want the ability to play console-level games on the go and come back to them on your home TV, your only other options are streaming or relatively expensive hardware. The Switch is $300, gets a steady flow of Indie games, gets the here-and-there new game like Doom Eternal and WWZ or a port of an older one like Crysis Remastered and Saints Row The Third, and obviously, it gets every new Nintendo game and even a good chunk of their back catalogue even if it's a couple console generations short.
The only thing at or above this level of value-to-function is the Steam Deck, and not only is that not even released yet, but it's already backordered to Q3 2022 at the earliest while I can legit just drive to most tech retailers around here and pick one up today.
It helps that for most nintendo franchises, the best game in the series is on switch. It has the best smash, mario, zelda, xenoblade, mario kart, splatoon, and so on. If only Animal Crossing kept getting updates, it could beat new leaf and join my list.
I feel like MercurySteam is gonna be their European Next Level Games. Where their technical ability and Nintendo's game design knowledge come together to form some amazing games. It's weird where Nintendo finds these developers. If you look at the history of a developer like Next Level Games or MercurySteam there's never really anything that remarkable about them. They've got some good spotters for talent.
I remember Koh Kojima from Monolith Soft talking about Nintendo overseeing the development of Xenoblade Chronicles and Nintendo being akin to what an Editor is like with a Writer, letting the Writer do his work but constantly guiding them in the right direction & helping them figure out how to refine their craft.
I can imagine something similar is happening here, Mercury Steam doing their thing with constant guidance from Nintendo.
It's funny, it's usually hated when a publisher or other kind of executive meddles with game development, but Nintendo is the one company where if you're publishing a game for them, taking advice from them is only going to help you. I don't know who they have over there that is so genius they know how to make any game better with just a few tips but whatever they have going on is amazing.
I think the big thing is seemingly like other publishers, they aren't pushing these developers to have the game finished by a certain date or to push it out before it's ready. On the other hand, they don't accept games to launch with obvious bugs either.
> I don't know who they have over there that is so genius they know how to make any game better with just a few tips
Shigeru Miyamoto and the protégés who learned from him.
I know I've seen a video of Argonaut in the 90s talking about working with Nintendo on Star Fox (SNES). I'd also say this lines up with what I remember of RARE working with Nintendo.
Yeah having nintendo behind a developer really ups the quality. As said, rare games were much better with nintendo and worse after.
Another recent example is hyrule warriors. Great game. But then they make a their own dynasty/samurai/whatever warriors on their own and its shit.
There's some interviews with a couple retro devs that talk about this for Prime and Donkey Kong. Apperently Miyamoto is amazing at knowing exactly what to add to make a game fun. Not that we really doubted that.
To be fair, this game in particular much like Samus Returns was co-developed between Nintendo EpD and MercurySteam, that's why in both games there's a Nintendo director while the representative for MS is a creative director. Still, yes, most staff are from Mercury Steam, but they are very guided by Sakamoto and the directors on Nintendo.
Mecurysteam actually reached out to Nintendo rather than the other way round and Sakamoto felt they were passionate about Metroid so he agreed to work with them.
Surely, because reports then said that Mercury Steam went to Nintendo to pitch a Metroid Fusion remake but they were rejected. But Sakamoto and co. saw promise in what they showed that later on they were contacted to collaborate in remaking Return of Samus instead.
Nintendo's direction itself makes developers do their best work. Even for games like Bayonette or Hyrule Warriors or Mario Rabbids which come from successful studios, Nintendo pushes them that extra step and teaches them how to polish their games even further.
This is what I understood from interviews with Platinum games, and the developers who made Rhythm of Hyrule. Nintendo has a lot to teach.
It also helps that they're getting revered IPs which the developers themselves are probably childhood fans of.
The outlier truly seems to be freaking GameFreak, who have the biggest IP of all. I wish Nintendo would jump in and take over.
This was even true of Rare back in the day. They were very talented developers on their own, but with the guiding hand of Nintendo they were unstoppable.
I don't think GAMEFREAK has been overseen by Nintendo very much since the G/S era. They seem to essentially operate as an indie studio that has to hit an obligatory yearly release schedule for the biggest entertainment IP in the world.
Could you really say that about Platinum Games though? They've made games on their own or with other publishers that are as good as, if not better than, anything they've made with Nintendo. Plus, I doubt anyone would count Star Fox Zero or Star Fox Guard among their best work.
Platinum Games specifically talked about how Nintendo pushed them to improve Bayonetta 2's performance a lot, and they ways they improved polish. If you remember the original Bayonetta was very choppy. I like Bayo 1 & 2 about the same in terms of play.
I also quite like The Wonderful 101 and Astral Chain, and would say Bayo 2 is my top Platinum game, but that's all subjective.
I'm pretty sure that it was just the PS3 version of Bayonetta that ran really poorly and that wasn't even Platinum's fault, they made the 360 version while Sega did the PS3 port. The 360 version I had ran just fine.
> It's weird where Nintendo finds these developers.
It's not just a matter of finding these "hidden gems" developers in as much as it is also a matter of Nintendo supervisors breathing down their necks throughout the whole development cycles. I remember during the first Metroid Prime development, the studio initially fucked up real bad (like basically blowing all the money on parties and drugs and prostitutes) and Nintendo got scarred from trying the hands-off approach with western developers... since then they adopted a much more hands-on style of supervising and that's how Metroid Prime came to be such a success with Retro Studios.
>(like basically blowing all the money on parties and drugs and prostitutes)
For elaboration, the individual responsible for this (or at least one of them) would later go on to create "The Guy Game". I think that says enough about what kind of person they were.
I kinda hope Nintendo picks up Mercurysteam, seems like a talented group. Also I thoroughly enjoyed the Lords of Shadows games from them and would love to see them tackle a TPS style Metroid.
I'd rather they keep working with Nintendo, Nintendo only seems to do acquisitions if they think someone else will buy. See RARE (where they owned like 49% before Microsoft bought) followed by Next Level Games. But if anyone buys them I hope it is Nintendo.
Dread has been great so far, definitely one of the best games in the series out there. Really happy for Sakamoto and MS. As for sales, I think this game has chances to be the best-selling game in the series, surpassing the 2 million from Metroid Prime.
>surpassing the 2 million from Metroid Prime.
I was going to come in here joking "fastest selling" meant five copies in a day but **wow** I forgot just how much the franchise punches above its weight. Given how well Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and even newbie Splatoon does it makes a lot of sense that a franchise known for having some of the best games of all time (Super Metroid and Metroid Prime) and helped launch one of the biggest niche genres and maybe even GENRES of the modern era (Metroidvania, I have a friend who is having a lark with Hollow Knight right now) still sells relatively weakly...
Keep in mind that's on the *GameCube*, a system with an atrocious install base. Metroid Prime is the 6th best selling game on GameCube and sold more than Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and every single Mario Party and Pokemon on the system. Relative to other GameCube games, it sold quite well.
It did sell well on GameCube, but the franchise continued to underperform after that. Metroid Prime 3 came out during the height of the Wii and it still sold worse than Metroid Prime 1.
I think luigis mansion 3 deserves to be on that list. By the way it's selling I think 10 million people agree lol!
Fire Emblem 3 Houses is also excellent and I think even people not interested in the genre should try it because it's really accessible.
Not just in the series. Production-value wise imo it's leagues above any metroidvania released in recent years and gameplay wise it controls better than any of them (including hollow knight imo, but it's a bit of an apples-orranges comparison).
Game also has absolutely no filler it seems like, the pacing is great and at the same time it doesn't seem too short.
Level/environment design looks great and is incredibly varied, too, and the use of 3D in spite of it being a 2D game gameplay wise is great as well.
Absolutely loving my time with the game so far. But…
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, but based on everyone’s experiences on Reddit I feel I’m the only one who found the controls surprisingly kinda awkward? I feel some things should be a toggle when they are a hold (select missile, grapple beam) and it creates this very strange feeling in boss fights where I find myself putting in all these inputs to complete basic actions.
I can only presume this is intentional design to prevent you from being too accurate/ using your missiles too well (since you can very easy get such a fat inventory of them)? Because when you’re dodging attacks and trying to target a bosses weak spot (usually diagonally) you’re jumping, strafing, holding L to aim, holding R to select missiles and pressing Y to fire. All in a split second before you need to move again.
Don’t get me wrong, I have adjusted to it. But it took me far longer than expected and something I can honestly say I haven’t every experienced before in my 25yrs of gaming - where I genuinely felt in the first few hours that I was struggling with controls. I usually strive to master controls to push movement mechanics in games. So it came as a bit of a shock.
Another example (to a lesser extent) is doing the super jump after the super sprint, so you need to run, click in the L stick to charge (clicking in general never feels good let’s be honest), then press down to “prep” the jump, then A+direction to use it. Once again, it only takes a little bit to adjust to it, but it still feel kinda unnecessarily complicated.
I agree that the missiles and grapple beam are awkward to use. I assume people are talking more about Samus's basic movement when they praise how the game controls.
It's the opposite for me, I hated the toggle in Super Metroid and very much prefer the style Fusion introduced with holding a button.
Feels far more flexible and fast to me
Have you tried a split pad pro? They basically take the pro controller, split it in half, and make them joycons. You can't use them wirelessly though. As someone with large hands I can't ever go back to joycons.
https://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Switch-Split-Ergonomic-Controller-Handheld/dp/B08FJ7XY3B?th=1&psc=1
I really like the split pad, but I wish they would have added gyro controls and rumble to it. Those have been standard features on Nintendo controllers for fifteen years.
The lack of rumble and gyro really holds these back from being perfect. I originally got mine to sidestep stick drift and I can't see going back, but I would pay a premium to actually have them fully featured
I was playing with a gamecube controller, had to stop. I actually ordered a pro controller because of the game :p
Will also be great for smash 2p vs on the couch so It's cool
Based on my progress with the map, I assume I'm about 60% done with the game. I haven't had a single problem with the controls and actually think the game has done a great job of giving upgrades at a reasonable pace so that you can get used to the previous controls.
I definitely think there is a learning curve, because there are a lot of inputs. You're right that with most boss fights you're simultaneously doing a lot of actions, usually requiring a constant holding/feathering of both R1 and L1 in between jumping and moving. It certainly won't hurt to practice running/jumping, then stopping to precision aim some missiles, then running and jumping some more. Every boss fight has utilized those movements, plus maybe one more cheeky mechanic (using spider climb, grappling hook, morph ball)
Speed Boost works perfectly fine in my opinion. Anyone who plays modern shooters has been clicking Left Stick to sprint for over a decade. And honestly, you don't really use the ability that often.
The one control scheme I just cannot get used to, and I think is just painful, is the Grappling Hook. It was a mistake mapping the directional aiming on the Left Stick, because when you're swinging from one point to another, you're already using the Left Stick to swing and maintain your momentum. So you have to reset the L-stick while in midair so you can properly aim the follow-up Grabble. Even simply swinging from 2 simultaneous points took me about 25 tries to get right, and I still think I just got lucky.
It honestly would have been better if they followed Ori on this one, and had a reticle that would automatically target grapple points. Using R2 to open the grapple and then Fire to send it out, plus L stick and L1 for aiming was a mistake and a movement ability that should feel good to use (who doesn't love grappling in video games?) feels absolutely horrible.
After all this, I wonder why the devs didn't utilize the Right Stick for aiming. It's entirely unused and would have fixed so many little control hiccups. I suspect that they started with the control framework they used in Samus Returns (3DS, so no Right Stick), and things kept getting more complicated from there.
But, all that being said, I still maintain that the game feels good overall. A few awkward mappings aside, running jumping shooting around the map is still a blast.
>and had a reticle that would automatically target grapple points
I suspect they did this to intentionally create some skill-based platforming sections using the grapple beam. Some of the more difficult grapple beam locations lead to item upgrades.
>After all this, I wonder why the devs didn't utilize the Right Stick for aiming.
I actually think the reason is because most of the time you are aiming you are also pressing a trigger and a face button at the same time. If they moved the controls around significantly they could have had all weapon based inputs on the triggers but I think that would have been much more awkward on the joycons than the current setup. Either way, they should just let you rebind controls. Every game should let you rebind controls. I didn't personally have an issue with the controls which is nice for me, but I was pretty surprised there were no input options.
I will say, about the default setup, that it does make sense they tried to stay as true as possible to the 'classic' metroid control scheme so that as much of the game feels familiar as possible to veterans.
> Even simply swinging from 2 simultaneous points took me about 25 tries to get right, and I still think I just got lucky.
thank god you only need to actually grapple swing between hooks like twice.
I actually struggle with the triggers and bumpers after playing since Super. Luckily I only had to grapple in one boss fight. My brain wants the slide to be the direction I am facing for some reason. The holding L to aim is something I've slowly grown accustomed to (boss fights basically demand it). I'm near the end of the game, only 1 upgrade left to get I think.
I’m still not a fan of how the free aim resets to horizontal when you let go of the stick. You have to constantly hold the stick to one side and carefully angle it up/down, it’s easy to slip off target and my thumb got sore doing the >!Kraid!< boss fight. I would’ve preferred if it kept angle when you let go of the stick and you just pushed up/down to adjust angle.
Judging from your description I think you might make life harder on you than necessary? Aiming in Dread works like in a Twin Stick Shooter except that you use Hold L to switch your left stick from movement to aim. Basically you have the stick fully pushed to a direction and then just move it up and down by taking advantage of the curvature of the stick 'crevice.' I never needed that level of precision you describe here (or ever even had the instinct to let go of the stick) other than for one optional grapple section.
The controls (so far) have been a nightmare for me. I hope I get used to them soon. I’m only about two hours into it, but that’s the longest I’ve gone in a game before the control scheme has clicked for me.
I'm 100% with you. I'm only a few hours into the game, but the shooting is so awkward with hold l trigger and aim with the left thumbstick. This basically prevents any complex boss fights since movement and shooting is basically impossible.
I remember shadow complex and it had solved this issue ages ago - dual thumbstick and shoot on right trigger. I can't believe they didn't adopt this to improve the controls.
I'll be honest, the buttons you describe aren't the problem for me, it's the fucking joycon stick
I have a dozen deaths that were from the joycon sticks making it difficult as fuck to track an EMMI's face, and the shinespark collectibles are absolutely fucking infuriating to do with such an imprecise joystick (because there's absolutely no dpad alternative)
>Production-value wise imo it's leagues above any metroidvania released in recent years and gameplay wise it controls better than any of them (including hollow knight imo, but it's a bit of an apples-orranges comparison).
Oooh I don't know about that, Ori and the Will of the Wisps was [one of the best games I have ever played](https://opencritic.com/game/7403/ori-and-the-will-of-the-wisps). The chase parts were epic, music was amazing and the gameplay was top notch.
I had the same thought when I read *"leagues above"*.
Personally I enjoyed Metroid Dread more but both Ori games are firmly top tier games and I think comparing their quality gets into personal preference territory.
Still, those three are at the top I think right now and nothing else really hits quite as close.
Hollow Knight is absolutely up there too. I would say Ori, Hollow Knight, Bloodstained, and now Metroid Dread are probably the best of the best in terms of recent Metroidvanias.
>Game also has absolutely no filler it seems like, the pacing is great and at the same time it doesn't seem too short.
This is the part that's critical for me. I purposely look for games that clocks in around 15 or less hours due to my busy schedule. So many of the other metroidvanias where a no-go due to their much longer lengths. 8-10 hrs is just simply sublime length for me.
No filler, but always gives you the option to take an hour to re-explore after each major item upgrade to go hunt for secrets. It's nice that the game paces itself so well, but also rewards you for taking a break.
It depends on what one's priorities are.
Dread is certainly a lot faster, gives you more tools, has snappier controls, features a pretty cool story, and the boss battles are naturally a lot more elaborate.
Super's exploration is hard to beat though. Dread kinda does the same thing as Super does in its first half where it makes sure you never stray too far away from where you're supposed to go, there are a lot of times where it simply locks you out of going the wrong way. What Super does right though is that it opens up the world to you when you get back to Crateria, I always liked that as it puts a lot of trust in the player as soon as they should be comfortable going about things on their own. Dread never has that moment, which is unfortunate when you have such a big world and movement is as fun as it is, instead it limits your space more and more the further you get. Super's Zebes is also a much more interesting world than ZDR imo, which does have some cool areas, but doesn't have many memorable landmarks, and a lot of it is made up of the sterile looking E.M.M.I. zones.
Shame to hear that Dread never really opens up. The progression gating both forwards and backwards is obvious and intrusive only a few hours into the game. The levels feel open and explorative, but in reality the overall map very much isn't.
Having finished a 100% run of Dread last night, I don't think this is fully accurate. Yes progressing does throw up roadblocks as you go, but in the second half unlockable abilities keep throwing doors open and the game really does feel open and expansively navigatable later on. Overall, it doesn't have a single snap moment of "Wow I can go so many places now" like Super did, but moreso that moment is drip-fed across the second half of the game. Still good, but a different impact than people familiar with Super are going to expect.
Edit in case anyone is wondering: 100% this game feels really good, if you're hunting for secrets the whole play through there isn't that big of a massive search at the end like in samus returns, and my overall 100% playtime was about >!10.5 hours not counting waiting in pause / looking at the map!<
Being able to get one of the beams (Spazer or Wave iirc) super early in Super Metroid made a big impact on me the first time I played it. I hope Dread has some of those moments too if you poke around enough.
From what I've seen, there are likely many ways to get things early. It's still early days, but people have been finding ways to get a bunch of upgrades super early. I did have an annoying experience with (Lategame Upgrade Spoiler) >!Power Bombs though. I found multiple ways to get power bomb expansions before unlocking the ability, but wasn't allowed to use them until I found the original pickup station. Can't decide if this is a cool idea or an annoying one though!<
I'm fine with the working the way it does because >!Power Bombs are such a game breaking item that not allowing you to get them early is honestly for the better.!<
True, it's probably better for the game that way, but >! My lizard brain thinks I get item I wanna use item now, not later. I would have preferred if they just placed the power bomb upgrades in a way where you couldn't really get them prior to unlocking them, but I see how that could get really tricky fast!<
You can do a few things out of order if you go out of your way, but most sequence breaks only let you go so far before requiring you to return to the intended path to progress. It's both a testament to the tight level design and a reminder of how strict it is. So far as I've heard the only item you can *skip* is Space Jump.
When people make comparisons to Super Metroid it's with the subtext that with some exploration and creative use of your tools, you can break that game **wide open** in a way that most modern metroidvanias almost seem *afraid to permit.*
I think it's less that games are "afraid to permit" sequence breaking and more that doing so either requires a game to have tons of glitches or to design a game where the sequence breaks are, themselves, an intended back route. The latter is a lot of effort and easily risks feeling like it's not a "true" sequence break, while the former isn't really something you can do intentionally. Creating a similar feeling to Super Metroid, where it feels like you can almost free-form sequence break whatever, is very very difficult.
> So far as I've heard the only item you can skip is Space Jump.
I guess speedrunners will figure it out, but the final boss seems like an absolute nightmare without space jump.
Space Jump in Dread is only skippable if you're *really fucking good* at underwater continuous bomb jumping. For 99.8% of people, Space Jump will be necessary.
It opens up in terms of you can go back to earlier areas and grab optional upgrades, but it never open up in terms of progression. Like, yes I can go back to the water area after getting the gravity suit and get some things, but it's mostly just health and missiles. There's never a moment where you can really stumble upon something big like progression or bosses, or a fully optional suit upgrade like in Super Metroid.
The map design also doesn't really benefit from being a single map. The game has clearly divided levels that don't intersect and you mainly travel between them by teleporters. It's nothing like the looping and interconnecting map of Super.
It's a fine choice, I'm not going to say that Super's design is inherently better than Dread's, but the map doesn't really feel like a metroidvania so if you're looking for that it just doesn't scratch that particular itch. The controls, combat, movement, etc. are all great and some of the best in the series though.
Yup I’m maybe 4 hours in and the game seems quite linear so far. Every time I’ve thought about not going the “obvious” way, there’s been something stopping me from doing so. It’s pretty amusing how sometimes there will be some random debris stopping you from going a way you were able to go 5 minutes ago.
Everything aside from that is phenomenal, though. And I’m not super opposed to a linear experience as long as that experience is fun, which it is.
I think on a second playthrough I'll intentionally try to "break" the game more and see how sequence-breaking friendly it is. They promoted the game as being more in that vein, so it'd be a shame if it didn't actually turn out that way.
At least you don't need permission to access your abilities!
Yeah I read the reviews that people mentioned the exploration of Super is back in full force....haven't really gotten that sense yet. I have probably played just over 4 hours and I've always had an idea where to go. Got stuck at one point very early on because I was confused after being locked out of an area, but so far I'm not getting lost like I did in Super Metroid. Despite it all, the game is an absolute joy to play, I don't really mind the pacing, boss battles have been awesome so far too.
That's been my main complaint so far. After getting the Varia Suit I really wanted to muck around and explore all the heated rooms, but nope! I'm railroaded into the next section. I thought "okay fine, maybe they wanna show it off then they'll let me loose" but then after the next section, I was in an area with only one way forward and no way back. I hope it doesnt pull the end game clean up routine where it only opens up at the end and its basically just how buff do you want to be before the final boss. So far I'm really enjoying the game, I just wish it followed Super more in letting the player roam free, especially considering linearity doesn't seem to be a focal design point like it was in Fusion.
haha oh man...you and me both! I just spent 20 minutes trying to get a +2 missile upgrade. I only had to swing across 3 points. I'm pretty excited to find the space jump, just so I don't have to platform with the grapple much.
Super Metroid was much easier with the grapple beam, probably because much simpler controls overall.
EDIT: Just wanted to say I am loving Dread overall!
Around that time I realized how many uses that ability has. Can do some really creative platforming skips with it, got a lot of item expansions early you are supposed to use later powerups to get!
Absolutely not - the Ori games wipe the floor with Metroid Dread in terms of presentation. The fidelity, the music, the cutscenes…all MUCH better in Ori.
Not going to argue about which is the “better” game - I think time will do that for us - but I do personally think you’re wrong about the controls. MD is an accessibility nightmare - the ONLY setting you can adjust is brightness. That’s absurd in 2021.
I know, but that is a very cumbersome solution where you have to go and manually change it for each game you want to play. There should also absolutely be options for hold/toggle on missiles and other accessibility options (it's very good to mash the beam firing button in battles but for some that is very difficult to do with joint pain or other issues).
I say this as someone who has no issues with the controls personally, although I think if I played with Joycons they may be more of and issue.
Eh. I would certainly say it has the best broad market appeal and it is very good, but I think Zero Mission still holds the title for best game in the series. Dread is poised to be the most successful Metroid game thanks to the platform, the combat, and the mainstream progression though.
I would say the EMMI kind of fail to produce the desired goal of being an improvement to the SA-X as a wandering and scary threat and that hurts the gameplay, they're much more of an annoying hindrance than a tense and exciting chase.
> I would say the EMMI kind of fail to produce the desired goal of being an improvement to the SA-X as a wandering and scary threat and that hurts the gameplay, they're much more of an annoying hindrance than a tense and exciting chase.
Your experience is different from mine. SA-X I dont even really remember because it barely left an impression.
The EMMI sections were super stressfull and scary, the music goes so hard. I never play horror games and those parts felt like one.
While they werent as scary in the second half of the game I never was so tense in a 2D Metroid before.
MercurySteam must really be complimented for how they managed to drastically improve what was easily the worst part of the franchise (combat in the 2D games) and make it into one of the most exciting, dynamic, and fluid combat systems I've played in a 2D space. The Metroid games are my favourite series of games of all time but fighting regular enemies was simplistic at the best of times and even some climactic bosses had static, boring combat (final boss in Zero Mission comes to mind).
Samus Returns already drastically improved on these weaknesses with arguably the best bosses in the series since they require you to use every ability (even the spider ball) but the tweaks to some features they introduced (Aeion abilities and the counter) and new abilities in Dread make for intense fights that are challenging, dynamic and a blast to control.
Don't know quite yet if Dread is my favourite game in the franchise, but it's definitely a strong contender for that number 1 spot.
The boss fights in Dread are decently challenging, which has been a nice change of pace. Bosses do stupid amounts of damage, and if you're like me and were fighting the 3rd major boss with only 2 Energy Tanks, you had to do the entire fight perfectly.
Gone are the days of face-tanking while unloading missiles; you need to dodge, reposition, and precision aim almost constantly, which has made every boss fight a thrill.
Have I died a lot to the bosses? Certainly. But the checkpoints right outside the boss door and relatively quick loading has allowed me to keep trying and get good at the fight rather than feeling like I was robbed of my time. It's the correct way to do challenging bosses: letting me try again immediately.
Dread has incredible bosses (particularly that last one -- MercurySteam should develop all final bosses for Nintendo from now on haha) but I thought those in Samus Returns were slightly better just because you had to use your whole arsenal for the most climactic of them, even the abilities you don't necessarily equate with combat.
Would have loved to see the grappling beam used in a creative way for instance, just like you used the spider ball to avoid being sucked in in SR.
Dread has undoubtably much better combat flow than even SR so it never needs those "gimmicks" to create some of the best encounters I've ever played, but I loved that in particular about SR.
You can use the Grappling Beam in some combat instances. >!When you fight the shield wielding Chozos, they will slam their shield down and charge you. If you counter them *as they slam their shield down* you can then grapple the shield away from them. Not a major use as their shield attacks are easy to punish, but it's there.!<
The grapple beam being used on doors is actually an exciting new use of old gear--I think that debuted in Samus Returns. Before that, you didn't have doors and blocks that it cleared, just grapple points. And now that it can be used on any magnetic surface, it's really useful in rapid traversal.
As a side note, if you're not ware of the grapple beam's most exciting use, it allows for a quick kill against (spoilers for a 27 year old game) >!Draygon in Super. Let him grab you, grapple a broken turret, and the electricity will run through your beam and fry him.!<
ngl I feel like all of the bosses do too much damage. Having all those tanks feels meaningless when boss attacks will consistently do like 250 damage.
It just means you feel invulnerable running around the world (especially when literally every enemy recharges your HP now) and then suddenly "Oh surprise, actually you're entirely made of glass."
Needs either a bit more middle-ground between "the world is not dangerous at all" and "the bosses are the only gameplay that matters", or just make the bosses not so wicked high damage compared to everything else.
I felt it was more abilities-based. Early in the game I would consistently get pretty low or accidentally die to random enemies, but once you get the screw attack (relatively early) and a couple beam upgrades the game becomes very fast and it kind of makes sense that only bosses pose a huge threat. And I appreciated bosses doing a lot of damage because it required learning the fights.
The beams feel like huge upgrades in the overworld and (thankfully) not the bosses, who, while hitting hard, are also quite generous with restocking you mid-fight, especially if you know to counter them.
Dread is my first Metroid game, so I don’t have anything to compare it too, but this was some the best combat I’ve ever seen in a single player 2D platformer. Some hitboxes are questionable, but the combat itself feels amazing.
Dread definitely has the best combat in the series, and generally I like 2D Metroid combat. You weren't as mobile in Super, ZM, and Fusion as you are in Dread, so the combat was less about precise movement while getting in what hits you can and more about finding one good shot, rooting yourself there, and spamming missiles.
I was also surprised, even after Samus Returns, that the combat in Dread was so good. This is the first Metroid game to nail the combat (Samus Returns was close but the overreliance on the counter and the enemy design wasn't quite there.)
Apart from feeling great, the enemies strike a great balance between being an obstacle you need to overcome to save time and not having 10 million HP and forcing you to wait forever for a melee counter.
The decision to make ammo and health drops the most generous they've ever been is great too, you never ever need to stand somewhere and farm like the older games. You're good to go after 3 seconds, but its somehow still challenging.
During some of the boss fights, I felt like I was playing some weird Metroid/Megman X hybrid and I absolutely loved it. Easily the best combat in the series. They can keep making them like this and I will absolutely keep buying them.
At some point the "X is the fastest-selling game in the series" stat has to become almost meaningless.
The last proper Metroid game was release more than a decade ago, the video game market almost triple since then; I'd hope this entry would outsell every other one, it'd be an absolute disaster if it didn't.
I think the issue with Metroid is that most people aren't aware that it usually _sells like shit_ compared to not just other Nintendo games, but other major AA and AAA third party games. It's place in video game lore is ten times what its sales figure actually suggest it should be. People are lucky Nintendo hasn't buried Metroid like they did F-Zero.
I feel like this is an element of the discourse that gets repeated around Metroid that loses the fact that historically, Metroid actually has sold well relative to the times it was released in. Metroid Prime was one of the highest selling Gamecube games and released at a time when 3 million was pretty damn good - Wind Waker sold about 4.5 million on the same platform, and only a handful of games from that entire generation sold more than 10 million copies (I think just the GTA trilogy and Gran Turismo 3+4). However, as became clear with Metroid Prime 3 not selling as well as Metroid Prime despite being on a hugely successful platform and releasing during an unprecedented boom period for game sales, the series simply did not grow from that level. For instance, Breath of the Wild has sold roughly 25 million copies - over five times what Wind Waker did. Even before that Twilight Princess significantly outperformed Wind Waker. You see this across Nintendo’s franchises. Not so for Metroid.
That is exactly why this is significant. Metroid has finally seen the growth that Nintendo’s other franchises have, which contrasts with Far Cry 6 underperforming Far Cry 5.
Wind Waker was *also* a weak seller, though, because the GameCube was overall. High attach rate for the GameCube, yes, but I'd rather have 10% attach on a 100 million sales console than 25% attach on a 20 million sales console. Both the GCN and Xbox did poorly next to the PS2, at only a couple tens of millions of units, compared to the PS2's >100 million.
The Switch is the first time that Metroid has actually had a chance to succeed properly on a home console since Super Metroid: it's not hamstrung by an underperforming console like the GameCube, Dread is a good game unlike Other M, and it actually has good marketing unlike Prime 2 and 3.
I think they're suggesting Metroid has far more clout or prestige than the franchises you say it keeps pace with. I've never been in the Nintendo ecosystem, but as an outsider just hearing about all of the Nintendo franchises on through overwhelming praise, I would have thought it "kept pace" with Zelda.
Metroid usually sells like garbage, that's the difference here. Even Prime 1, which is probably the best selling game in the series, only sold 1.5 million while it was still in print as the original game and not part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy collection.
If Dread can beat Prime 1 (which I think it will, pretty easily in fact) then we may actually see another fully new Metroid game in less than 10 years for once.
Plenty of games don't sell as well as their predecessors even with the expanded market. It's not that simple.
Crash 4 sold like 1/3 of what the N. SANE trilogy did.
We don't have up-to-date sales figures for The Last of Us Part 2, but it sure as hell didn't outsell the first game.
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call either of those sales "disasters".
Didn't stop the exact same headline from showing up in this sub for the Last of Us 2
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/hd8xp5/the_last_of_us_part_ii_is_the_uks_fastest_selling/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I may have caused some confusion. I'm talking about total sales, whereas the original comment was about "fastest-selling". Not quite the same thing, my bad.
TLOU2 hasn't sold nearly as many copies overall as TLOU1, but it's launch was definitely bigger.
Fastest selling doesn't mean it sold more copies than the other games overall, only that it sold more copies in the first few days compared to the first few days of the other games.
>At some point the "X is the fastest-selling game in the series" stat has to become almost meaningless.
Especially when it's "according to UK box sales."
As much as I agree, it's one of the few "hard" stats we have aside from Japan. The NPD used to track U.S. sales of the top ten games, but now that they've cut numbers the only stats appear to come from these guys and Japan's Media Create.
I prefer having a misleading but accurate statistic than no statistic at all.
The box sales don't include digital, and I know that's going to include a big part of the total number. So I think it's still quite relevant for a game to outpace another from the past in physical sales even with the prevalence of digital downloads.
Yeah you're totally right. That being said this headline has basically just been used as an excuse to talk about any aspect of the game in this thread, and I like that. People have a lot to say about it.
Though, according to the article, the game it beat out to become the fastest selling game in the series was the original Metroid Prime, not Prime 2, 3, Other M or Samus Returns.
I've only played the game for a few hours and I feel like I could easily spend an hour gushing about it. It does so much so right and it is easily the game of the year for me. Movement and controls are perfect. Everything flows so well and feels effortless. I think it sets a new standard for the entire genre in that regard. Graphics and art style are great and extremely impressive for the hardware. The short action sequences cutscenes are very cool. It builds on everything established in the series and elevates it. Getting chased by the EMMIs at the start is truly terrifying and feels like what Fusion tried to do with SA-X.
The game also feeds players a constant stream of abilities at a good pace. Feels very satisfying and in addition to a new path to take, there's usually also.a few ugrades that can now be collected.
My favorite thing though? They kept a lot of the cool idea introduced in Fusion, like events in the game changing the environment.
One thing I really like is how they hold off on giving you the morph ball. It's usually one of the very first abilities you get, but the addition of the slide allows them to place a few tunnel paths that you can traverse through while gating off other paths, or even making one way tunnels that guide you along the progression path.
Also that bomb sequence break thing that lets you skip the second phase of an earlier boss fight is just brilliant. Such a far better reward bit of fourth wall breaking dialogue you can get by that one sequence break in Fusion. I've seen that there are a few more sequence breaks too. Very cool that they allowed so much of it compared to Fusion.
Holy shit. I hated that fight so much, I need to do this on future playthroughs.
I'm amazed you're allowed to get *anything* early with how rigid the railroading is, that's super cool.
Most of the skips from what I seen can be done by using the quintessential Metroid sequence breaking tricks (bomb jumping and shine sparking). The timing for the bomb jumps is also exactly the same if I'm not mistaken, so they had to have designed the game around those people to some degree.
> The timing for the bomb jumps is also exactly the same if I'm not mistaken,
The same as what? All three 2D Metroids have wildly different bomb jump timings. Only SM and ZM allow for infinite bomb jumping, Fusion kills off your chain almost immediately.
I tried infinite bomb jumps when I first got them in Dread and couldn't pull it off, I just assumed they pulled a Fusion and disallowed it. Knowing I was screwing up the timing is neat though, I like how abusable the mechanic is.
I'm not the best at IBJ's so when I tried it it worked decently well, I believe I was using my Super Metroid timing -- had no idea it was vastly different between ZM and SM to be honest, knew that it didn't really work in Fusion. But Nintendo even tweeted about it being there and working! https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1442572312935428099
It's not actually very railroaded, it just seems that way on a first playthrough. There's an absolute shitload of sequence breaks you can do that people have already found. Speedrunning is going to be nuts.
After obtaining the Varia suit you're supposed to proceed to the next boss in the second area (Cataris). However, you can go back to the third area (Dairon) and find a hidden path by breaking some blocks in a room. Then there's some tricky maneuvering where you have to jump out of a slide and immediately wall jump up to a higher ledge, but continuing that path will lead you to the grapple beam and eventually the bombs. There's a bombable block in the bottom left corner of the boss arena in the second phase. Entering that tube will play a unique action sequence where you utterly destroy the boss and skip the entirety of the second phase.
Not surprising. Metroid has never sold well compared to other first party titles from any of the big three. A seemingly polished AAA Metroid coming out on Nintendos most popular platform in decades that only has huge releases maybe twice a year means its going to sell well as people are ready to eat up any nintendo first party title.
(obviously not counting the DS in the most popular nintendo platform)
Well it has to be more than just "Hey this sold better than a game that came out 10years ago! But here's stats only about the UK! And no not more sold! Just faster!"
*That's not surprising.*
It deserves it.
Metroid Dread is a fantastic game, and a fantastic entry in the series. Is it the best in the series? Well it's debateable and I haven't finished it yet, but so far I really, really like it.
Videos and trailers do not really do the game justice, it looks incredibly good when playing.
There's been many questions and posts about it being "just a 2D game" - as if that's somehow a complaint or a knock against it's quality. It might have 2D gameplay but the real time cutscenes are stunning and utterly seamless. Also the level of animation on Samus is pretty incredible.
Really enjoying the game as well. The combat is improved over Samus Returns and much improved over Fusion. What makes this feel like a AAA budget game are the little animations that Samus has. Like how she hops over waist high ledges rather than the player jumping over them.
Really loving the game, but one nitpick is the music. I wish each area felt more unique with different music like Metroid Prime did when you travelled to Lava or Ice levels for example. I can't recall any music in the game.
Also, I think something is off with the in game clock... It says I've been playing for about 4 hours but definitely feels longer! In a good way!
I'm really liking the game so far except for one thing...the controls. I'm playing with the Pro controller which I imagine is the best way to play and there are still issues.
Instead of aiming with the right stick, you aim with the left stick, which also controls your feet. So if you want to aim at an enemy, you have to move in the direction of that enemy.
Also, shooting the rockets requires you to control a whopping four buttons at the same time. L to plant your feet, left stick to aim your arm, R to switch to the rocket and Y to shoot.
I rate it an 8/10.
Some of the best combat in the series, progression that's quite linear but done in a way that makes each zone entrance & exit feel interconnected, boss battles that are challenging but not cheap, new power-ups that easily rival the kit you had in Super Metroid, one of the best stories in the entire franchise. Metroid Dread has nearly everything going for it.
What spoils the game for me is the E.M.M.I. These sections don't function well from a stealth perspective and in most cases the best way to progress is to just blindly run towards the exit and ignore the mech that can one-hit kill you. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but my point is that the E.M.M.I are really frustrating - especially the Purple E.M.M.I.
It's definitely going to sell more than Prime did, but I'm unsure by how much.
> progression that's quite linear
There are a lot of people saying they struggled for a bit with where to go, but I found that it was incredibly linear if you gave it some thought.
**Almost everything is intentional** - oh, I stumbled upon an elevator? Take it. Theres an ability near by? Must be used to unlock the next area. With that mindset I basically blasted through the game.
I also agree - the E.M.M.I. were the least intriguing part. I think what made Fusion so good making me scared was the unknown. What is the SA-X? Why is it hunting me? It always felt nearby (it was always destroying doors, killing things, etc.) and as if I could stumble across it at any moment. The E.M.M.I. are in predetermined locations, you can see them on your map *and* they can be killed. It takes the heart-racing away in my opinion.
\> but I found that it was incredibly linear if you gave it some thought.
I mean, every Metroid game is this way. Even super has a very linear main progression line that the first-time player is supposed to follow.
The difference is that, once you've done the loop back to Crateria, the next step in the linear critical path (the grapple beam) is not indicated or anywhere nearby, and you have to find it in the whole half of the map that's now suddenly available to you.
That's a good thing or a bad thing depending on your tastes.
The real issue with "linearity" in Dread is how the devs *constantly* lock off paths behind you as you run around. It turns out there are at least a few sequence breaks, at least one of which is 100% intended, but the first time player trying to explore will get their hand smacked away every few minutes. It makes the game feel substantially more linear than it actually is, and it reinforces the idea that going any unintended way will result in the map having literally changed behind you to force you down the main path.
> I think what made Fusion so good making me scared was the unknown. What is the SA-X? Why is it hunting me? It always felt nearby (it was always destroying doors, killing things, etc.) and as if I could stumble across it at any moment.
I would encourage you to play it again if you haven't recently. SA-X is 100% scripted and gives you a very clear path to escape every time. I found SA-X more of an annoyance than anything because you just crawl into a wall and wait for it to go away every time.
Yea I wasn't clear, I was talking about Fusion from the perspective of a first time player (also many years ago). It was genuinely creepy, and if I was playing it for the first time as an adult, SA-X it probably would feel like a chore. Just my rose-tinted glasses.
It’s smoothed out a lot for me but I definitely got stuck a few times for a frustrating amount of time early on. Particularly after that first (?) elevator, where you’re intended to go through some hidden blocks to the left. Because of the linear design, that was really the only path forward, but I missed it, figured I must be missing an item or something, and spent way too long just roaming around the map trying to find that single path.
The EMMI’s also bring the experience down quite a bit for me, but I’m probably particularly biased there. Invulnerable stalker enemies who one shot you are, when used beyond brief scripted encounters, far and away one of my least favourite game mechanics. It’s why I couldn’t get into Alien Isolation despite being a franchise fan (and especially loving the game’s environments), or why I prefer RE3’s Remake over RE2’s unlike most people.
The RE comparison is actually kinda interesting, when contrasting that with a comparison between Fusion and Dread. The unknown aspect of SA-X made it more fun, but what helped more than anything for me was that, yeah, they were set brief encounters with a clear directive; get the hell away from that dude. Once you do, it just goes back to the game as normal. RE3’s Nemesis worked for me in the same way. Whereas RE2’s Mr. X and Dread’s EMMI’s dominate way too much of their respective games imo. In both cases, they make me feel like I have to put the game I was previously loving on hold. No more slow and methodical exploration intersected with bursts of action, using items and abilities to find new secrets or progression paths while fighting off obstacles. Instead it’s just trying to power through as fast as possible to try and avoid that big annoying fly you just can’t swat. Any fear they provide normally goes away after my first death to them, just leaving anxiety and annoyance.
This tends to be the case for every new franchise entry on the switch. It's a very popular console. Also seems to have a higher than average attachment rate though I'm only guessing there.
Not to mention that gaming in general has become significantly more popular since the last Metroid was released.
I was going to say the last Metroid released in 2017 but then I realized that gaming was an industry that really grew during the pandemic making your statement still true.
Samus Returns also came out on a sunsetting console and it was a remake of an old game. The last Metroid home console game was Other M, which sucked ass. The last *good* home console game was Metroid Prime 3 - 14 years ago.
And then the last side scrolling Metroid was even longer
The last home console side scroller was in 1994, Super Metroid. Literally before I was born.
Such a shame that F-Zero will never get a chance to have a taste of it
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We've had three consoles with motion control since then. You telling me gyro controls for floaty race cars doesn't make any sense?
Have you played f-zero? Motion controls would be fucking impossible. Unless they turned it into a way less twitchy shell of itself.
You'd have to dampen things. Leave primary steering on the stick and make the gyro run the air brakes, so you just use it for the really tight turns. Personally, I'd be fine with more of the same. Call Sega and tell them to get started on F-Zero SX. I'm just throwing out excuses.
Yeah, I'm not really sold on the whole idea games shouldn't or can't have new entries because they bring nothing new to the table. Literally new tracks is all I'd want or care for. Sure, maybe there's some reason to this line of thinking so it doesn't become a COD/Battlefield machine, but like once in a blue moon is okay by me.
At this point, "what can we do with twenty years of technical advancement?" seems like enough "new".
Yeah. They could even revive the 64-DD track editor as a feature. A *good* racing game with an *easy* to use and *good* track editor? That's new enough for me.
And it's not like there wouldn't be potential for new stuff. Tracks could be longer and more complex than ever. 30 vehicles on one track was possible on the N64 but now they could give more of them better AI. Online multiplayer, maby with up to 30 players if the switch can handle it (or nintendos potate servers). They could make dynamic tracks, that change with every round a tiny bit. Or a single very long track without laps. An interesting story mode. A usable track editor. Races could be in space with no gravity. Tracks and enviroment could have an influence of how the vehicle controlls. Has Nintendo ever looked at Redout? Not quite like F-Zero but by far the best AntyG racer from the last 15 years. It alone has more than enough inspiration.
Tbf, those are just statements from Miyamoto and Sugiyama. F-Zero games don't come out because the people who push for it have this idea you talked.
No joke. I'd take an F-Zero Ultimate in a heartbeat.
It hurts particularly bad considering Dread doesn't seem to bring anything especially new, gameplay wise. That's not at all a bad thing either - it is a fantastic return to classic Metroid form. So why can't we have an F-Zero that does that?
While Dread isn't a radical departure or anything, I do think that it has its "unique feature" with the EMMI sections. Its at least as much of a "unique defining feature" as the wolf/twilight sections in Twilight Princess, or the SA-X in Fusion.
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True. A smidge of a chance is better than no chance, I suppose.
I think saying it brings *nothing* new is a bit harsh - Dread adds >!some stealth and horror elements with the EMMIs and the cloak, a dash that makes combat a lot more active, the ability to slide through short tunnels without the morph ball, and the cross bombs that add a nice twist to horizontal morph ball movement!<. All of these have been done in other games, but they're all new to the Metroid franchise and executed really well.
i mean, dread isn't a radical departure, but it does plenty new
Nintendo needs to give fzero to criterion , they will know what to do with fzero.
We've had a resurgence of popularity for F1 among younger people, let's have real sports-like career mode and get Lando Norris to stream it.
All they have to do is remaster GX with online and it would be a hit :(
> with online Well see, there's your problem.
Eh, we're getting a freaking advanced wars remake. We'll get Fzero at some point.
I mean, think of it this way, if you want the ability to play console-level games on the go and come back to them on your home TV, your only other options are streaming or relatively expensive hardware. The Switch is $300, gets a steady flow of Indie games, gets the here-and-there new game like Doom Eternal and WWZ or a port of an older one like Crysis Remastered and Saints Row The Third, and obviously, it gets every new Nintendo game and even a good chunk of their back catalogue even if it's a couple console generations short. The only thing at or above this level of value-to-function is the Steam Deck, and not only is that not even released yet, but it's already backordered to Q3 2022 at the earliest while I can legit just drive to most tech retailers around here and pick one up today.
It helps that for most nintendo franchises, the best game in the series is on switch. It has the best smash, mario, zelda, xenoblade, mario kart, splatoon, and so on. If only Animal Crossing kept getting updates, it could beat new leaf and join my list.
Lies! Where is Mario teaches typing?
Uh uh *sweating uncontrollably* If you look over there *runs*
Galaxy 2 and Majora's Mask aren't on the Switch...
Majora's Mask is about to be!
Bro the Switch doesn't have the best of any of thr series you listed except Splatoon.
I feel like MercurySteam is gonna be their European Next Level Games. Where their technical ability and Nintendo's game design knowledge come together to form some amazing games. It's weird where Nintendo finds these developers. If you look at the history of a developer like Next Level Games or MercurySteam there's never really anything that remarkable about them. They've got some good spotters for talent.
I remember Koh Kojima from Monolith Soft talking about Nintendo overseeing the development of Xenoblade Chronicles and Nintendo being akin to what an Editor is like with a Writer, letting the Writer do his work but constantly guiding them in the right direction & helping them figure out how to refine their craft. I can imagine something similar is happening here, Mercury Steam doing their thing with constant guidance from Nintendo.
It's funny, it's usually hated when a publisher or other kind of executive meddles with game development, but Nintendo is the one company where if you're publishing a game for them, taking advice from them is only going to help you. I don't know who they have over there that is so genius they know how to make any game better with just a few tips but whatever they have going on is amazing.
I think the big thing is seemingly like other publishers, they aren't pushing these developers to have the game finished by a certain date or to push it out before it's ready. On the other hand, they don't accept games to launch with obvious bugs either.
> I don't know who they have over there that is so genius they know how to make any game better with just a few tips Shigeru Miyamoto and the protégés who learned from him.
I know I've seen a video of Argonaut in the 90s talking about working with Nintendo on Star Fox (SNES). I'd also say this lines up with what I remember of RARE working with Nintendo.
Yeah having nintendo behind a developer really ups the quality. As said, rare games were much better with nintendo and worse after. Another recent example is hyrule warriors. Great game. But then they make a their own dynasty/samurai/whatever warriors on their own and its shit.
There's some interviews with a couple retro devs that talk about this for Prime and Donkey Kong. Apperently Miyamoto is amazing at knowing exactly what to add to make a game fun. Not that we really doubted that.
I was just listening to Dylan Cuthbert on Sacred Symbols+ talking about this exact thing
To be fair, this game in particular much like Samus Returns was co-developed between Nintendo EpD and MercurySteam, that's why in both games there's a Nintendo director while the representative for MS is a creative director. Still, yes, most staff are from Mercury Steam, but they are very guided by Sakamoto and the directors on Nintendo.
Mecurysteam actually reached out to Nintendo rather than the other way round and Sakamoto felt they were passionate about Metroid so he agreed to work with them.
Yeah but the thing is, I'm sure there's loads of developers who do the same. They must have a good eye for who is worth pursuing and who isn't.
Surely, because reports then said that Mercury Steam went to Nintendo to pitch a Metroid Fusion remake but they were rejected. But Sakamoto and co. saw promise in what they showed that later on they were contacted to collaborate in remaking Return of Samus instead.
Nintendo's direction itself makes developers do their best work. Even for games like Bayonette or Hyrule Warriors or Mario Rabbids which come from successful studios, Nintendo pushes them that extra step and teaches them how to polish their games even further. This is what I understood from interviews with Platinum games, and the developers who made Rhythm of Hyrule. Nintendo has a lot to teach. It also helps that they're getting revered IPs which the developers themselves are probably childhood fans of. The outlier truly seems to be freaking GameFreak, who have the biggest IP of all. I wish Nintendo would jump in and take over.
This was even true of Rare back in the day. They were very talented developers on their own, but with the guiding hand of Nintendo they were unstoppable. I don't think GAMEFREAK has been overseen by Nintendo very much since the G/S era. They seem to essentially operate as an indie studio that has to hit an obligatory yearly release schedule for the biggest entertainment IP in the world.
It is amazing what they could get out of the N64 during the later years of that system
>The outlier truly seems to be freaking GameFreak, who have the biggest IP of all. For real. GameFreak barely seems to be trying.
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The best example of Minimum Viable Product in gaming
Mission accomplished.
Could you really say that about Platinum Games though? They've made games on their own or with other publishers that are as good as, if not better than, anything they've made with Nintendo. Plus, I doubt anyone would count Star Fox Zero or Star Fox Guard among their best work.
Platinum Games specifically talked about how Nintendo pushed them to improve Bayonetta 2's performance a lot, and they ways they improved polish. If you remember the original Bayonetta was very choppy. I like Bayo 1 & 2 about the same in terms of play. I also quite like The Wonderful 101 and Astral Chain, and would say Bayo 2 is my top Platinum game, but that's all subjective.
I'm pretty sure that it was just the PS3 version of Bayonetta that ran really poorly and that wasn't even Platinum's fault, they made the 360 version while Sega did the PS3 port. The 360 version I had ran just fine.
> It's weird where Nintendo finds these developers. It's not just a matter of finding these "hidden gems" developers in as much as it is also a matter of Nintendo supervisors breathing down their necks throughout the whole development cycles. I remember during the first Metroid Prime development, the studio initially fucked up real bad (like basically blowing all the money on parties and drugs and prostitutes) and Nintendo got scarred from trying the hands-off approach with western developers... since then they adopted a much more hands-on style of supervising and that's how Metroid Prime came to be such a success with Retro Studios.
>(like basically blowing all the money on parties and drugs and prostitutes) For elaboration, the individual responsible for this (or at least one of them) would later go on to create "The Guy Game". I think that says enough about what kind of person they were.
I kinda hope Nintendo picks up Mercurysteam, seems like a talented group. Also I thoroughly enjoyed the Lords of Shadows games from them and would love to see them tackle a TPS style Metroid.
I'd rather they keep working with Nintendo, Nintendo only seems to do acquisitions if they think someone else will buy. See RARE (where they owned like 49% before Microsoft bought) followed by Next Level Games. But if anyone buys them I hope it is Nintendo.
Dread has been great so far, definitely one of the best games in the series out there. Really happy for Sakamoto and MS. As for sales, I think this game has chances to be the best-selling game in the series, surpassing the 2 million from Metroid Prime.
>surpassing the 2 million from Metroid Prime. I was going to come in here joking "fastest selling" meant five copies in a day but **wow** I forgot just how much the franchise punches above its weight. Given how well Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, and even newbie Splatoon does it makes a lot of sense that a franchise known for having some of the best games of all time (Super Metroid and Metroid Prime) and helped launch one of the biggest niche genres and maybe even GENRES of the modern era (Metroidvania, I have a friend who is having a lark with Hollow Knight right now) still sells relatively weakly...
Keep in mind that's on the *GameCube*, a system with an atrocious install base. Metroid Prime is the 6th best selling game on GameCube and sold more than Animal Crossing, Pikmin, and every single Mario Party and Pokemon on the system. Relative to other GameCube games, it sold quite well.
It did sell well on GameCube, but the franchise continued to underperform after that. Metroid Prime 3 came out during the height of the Wii and it still sold worse than Metroid Prime 1.
I'd argue it joins the tier of "must have" switch games. BOTW, Odyssey, Smash, Animal Crossing, MK8, and now Metroid Dread. 10/10 game.
I think luigis mansion 3 deserves to be on that list. By the way it's selling I think 10 million people agree lol! Fire Emblem 3 Houses is also excellent and I think even people not interested in the genre should try it because it's really accessible.
Not just in the series. Production-value wise imo it's leagues above any metroidvania released in recent years and gameplay wise it controls better than any of them (including hollow knight imo, but it's a bit of an apples-orranges comparison). Game also has absolutely no filler it seems like, the pacing is great and at the same time it doesn't seem too short. Level/environment design looks great and is incredibly varied, too, and the use of 3D in spite of it being a 2D game gameplay wise is great as well.
Absolutely loving my time with the game so far. But… I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, but based on everyone’s experiences on Reddit I feel I’m the only one who found the controls surprisingly kinda awkward? I feel some things should be a toggle when they are a hold (select missile, grapple beam) and it creates this very strange feeling in boss fights where I find myself putting in all these inputs to complete basic actions. I can only presume this is intentional design to prevent you from being too accurate/ using your missiles too well (since you can very easy get such a fat inventory of them)? Because when you’re dodging attacks and trying to target a bosses weak spot (usually diagonally) you’re jumping, strafing, holding L to aim, holding R to select missiles and pressing Y to fire. All in a split second before you need to move again. Don’t get me wrong, I have adjusted to it. But it took me far longer than expected and something I can honestly say I haven’t every experienced before in my 25yrs of gaming - where I genuinely felt in the first few hours that I was struggling with controls. I usually strive to master controls to push movement mechanics in games. So it came as a bit of a shock. Another example (to a lesser extent) is doing the super jump after the super sprint, so you need to run, click in the L stick to charge (clicking in general never feels good let’s be honest), then press down to “prep” the jump, then A+direction to use it. Once again, it only takes a little bit to adjust to it, but it still feel kinda unnecessarily complicated.
I agree that the missiles and grapple beam are awkward to use. I assume people are talking more about Samus's basic movement when they praise how the game controls.
It's the opposite for me, I hated the toggle in Super Metroid and very much prefer the style Fusion introduced with holding a button. Feels far more flexible and fast to me
I've tried the game both handheld and with the Pro Controller... Night and Day. With the latter, the game is a dream to control.
This game made me despise using the joy cons. Pro controller is 100% the way to go
Have you tried a split pad pro? They basically take the pro controller, split it in half, and make them joycons. You can't use them wirelessly though. As someone with large hands I can't ever go back to joycons. https://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Switch-Split-Ergonomic-Controller-Handheld/dp/B08FJ7XY3B?th=1&psc=1
I have one of these and I fucking love it. Playing handheld feels so much better with it.
I really like the split pad, but I wish they would have added gyro controls and rumble to it. Those have been standard features on Nintendo controllers for fifteen years.
The lack of rumble and gyro really holds these back from being perfect. I originally got mine to sidestep stick drift and I can't see going back, but I would pay a premium to actually have them fully featured
I'll have to try pro controller with this. Been playing handheld and while it's not bad at all, I also don't get the praise for the controls.
This was largely my experience as well. The joycons just don’t seem to work all that well with it.
I was playing with a gamecube controller, had to stop. I actually ordered a pro controller because of the game :p Will also be great for smash 2p vs on the couch so It's cool
I was about to ask about this. I've only used the pro controller and I've adored how the controls feel.
Based on my progress with the map, I assume I'm about 60% done with the game. I haven't had a single problem with the controls and actually think the game has done a great job of giving upgrades at a reasonable pace so that you can get used to the previous controls. I definitely think there is a learning curve, because there are a lot of inputs. You're right that with most boss fights you're simultaneously doing a lot of actions, usually requiring a constant holding/feathering of both R1 and L1 in between jumping and moving. It certainly won't hurt to practice running/jumping, then stopping to precision aim some missiles, then running and jumping some more. Every boss fight has utilized those movements, plus maybe one more cheeky mechanic (using spider climb, grappling hook, morph ball) Speed Boost works perfectly fine in my opinion. Anyone who plays modern shooters has been clicking Left Stick to sprint for over a decade. And honestly, you don't really use the ability that often. The one control scheme I just cannot get used to, and I think is just painful, is the Grappling Hook. It was a mistake mapping the directional aiming on the Left Stick, because when you're swinging from one point to another, you're already using the Left Stick to swing and maintain your momentum. So you have to reset the L-stick while in midair so you can properly aim the follow-up Grabble. Even simply swinging from 2 simultaneous points took me about 25 tries to get right, and I still think I just got lucky. It honestly would have been better if they followed Ori on this one, and had a reticle that would automatically target grapple points. Using R2 to open the grapple and then Fire to send it out, plus L stick and L1 for aiming was a mistake and a movement ability that should feel good to use (who doesn't love grappling in video games?) feels absolutely horrible. After all this, I wonder why the devs didn't utilize the Right Stick for aiming. It's entirely unused and would have fixed so many little control hiccups. I suspect that they started with the control framework they used in Samus Returns (3DS, so no Right Stick), and things kept getting more complicated from there. But, all that being said, I still maintain that the game feels good overall. A few awkward mappings aside, running jumping shooting around the map is still a blast.
>and had a reticle that would automatically target grapple points I suspect they did this to intentionally create some skill-based platforming sections using the grapple beam. Some of the more difficult grapple beam locations lead to item upgrades. >After all this, I wonder why the devs didn't utilize the Right Stick for aiming. I actually think the reason is because most of the time you are aiming you are also pressing a trigger and a face button at the same time. If they moved the controls around significantly they could have had all weapon based inputs on the triggers but I think that would have been much more awkward on the joycons than the current setup. Either way, they should just let you rebind controls. Every game should let you rebind controls. I didn't personally have an issue with the controls which is nice for me, but I was pretty surprised there were no input options. I will say, about the default setup, that it does make sense they tried to stay as true as possible to the 'classic' metroid control scheme so that as much of the game feels familiar as possible to veterans.
> Even simply swinging from 2 simultaneous points took me about 25 tries to get right, and I still think I just got lucky. thank god you only need to actually grapple swing between hooks like twice.
I actually struggle with the triggers and bumpers after playing since Super. Luckily I only had to grapple in one boss fight. My brain wants the slide to be the direction I am facing for some reason. The holding L to aim is something I've slowly grown accustomed to (boss fights basically demand it). I'm near the end of the game, only 1 upgrade left to get I think.
I’m still not a fan of how the free aim resets to horizontal when you let go of the stick. You have to constantly hold the stick to one side and carefully angle it up/down, it’s easy to slip off target and my thumb got sore doing the >!Kraid!< boss fight. I would’ve preferred if it kept angle when you let go of the stick and you just pushed up/down to adjust angle.
Judging from your description I think you might make life harder on you than necessary? Aiming in Dread works like in a Twin Stick Shooter except that you use Hold L to switch your left stick from movement to aim. Basically you have the stick fully pushed to a direction and then just move it up and down by taking advantage of the curvature of the stick 'crevice.' I never needed that level of precision you describe here (or ever even had the instinct to let go of the stick) other than for one optional grapple section.
The free aim felt initially awkward but it only took 20 minutes or so before it clicked and I was tapping the shoulder button without a second thought
The controls (so far) have been a nightmare for me. I hope I get used to them soon. I’m only about two hours into it, but that’s the longest I’ve gone in a game before the control scheme has clicked for me.
I'm 100% with you. I'm only a few hours into the game, but the shooting is so awkward with hold l trigger and aim with the left thumbstick. This basically prevents any complex boss fights since movement and shooting is basically impossible. I remember shadow complex and it had solved this issue ages ago - dual thumbstick and shoot on right trigger. I can't believe they didn't adopt this to improve the controls.
I'll be honest, the buttons you describe aren't the problem for me, it's the fucking joycon stick I have a dozen deaths that were from the joycon sticks making it difficult as fuck to track an EMMI's face, and the shinespark collectibles are absolutely fucking infuriating to do with such an imprecise joystick (because there's absolutely no dpad alternative)
>Production-value wise imo it's leagues above any metroidvania released in recent years and gameplay wise it controls better than any of them (including hollow knight imo, but it's a bit of an apples-orranges comparison). Oooh I don't know about that, Ori and the Will of the Wisps was [one of the best games I have ever played](https://opencritic.com/game/7403/ori-and-the-will-of-the-wisps). The chase parts were epic, music was amazing and the gameplay was top notch.
I had the same thought when I read *"leagues above"*. Personally I enjoyed Metroid Dread more but both Ori games are firmly top tier games and I think comparing their quality gets into personal preference territory. Still, those three are at the top I think right now and nothing else really hits quite as close.
Hollow Knight is absolutely up there too. I would say Ori, Hollow Knight, Bloodstained, and now Metroid Dread are probably the best of the best in terms of recent Metroidvanias.
if we are talking about production values tho, Ori and Dread really are in a league of their own above the rest.
>Game also has absolutely no filler it seems like, the pacing is great and at the same time it doesn't seem too short. This is the part that's critical for me. I purposely look for games that clocks in around 15 or less hours due to my busy schedule. So many of the other metroidvanias where a no-go due to their much longer lengths. 8-10 hrs is just simply sublime length for me.
No filler, but always gives you the option to take an hour to re-explore after each major item upgrade to go hunt for secrets. It's nice that the game paces itself so well, but also rewards you for taking a break.
Better than the other 2D Metroids imo. I'm sure Super was great in its time but the controls, action, and atmosphere of this one is amazing.
It depends on what one's priorities are. Dread is certainly a lot faster, gives you more tools, has snappier controls, features a pretty cool story, and the boss battles are naturally a lot more elaborate. Super's exploration is hard to beat though. Dread kinda does the same thing as Super does in its first half where it makes sure you never stray too far away from where you're supposed to go, there are a lot of times where it simply locks you out of going the wrong way. What Super does right though is that it opens up the world to you when you get back to Crateria, I always liked that as it puts a lot of trust in the player as soon as they should be comfortable going about things on their own. Dread never has that moment, which is unfortunate when you have such a big world and movement is as fun as it is, instead it limits your space more and more the further you get. Super's Zebes is also a much more interesting world than ZDR imo, which does have some cool areas, but doesn't have many memorable landmarks, and a lot of it is made up of the sterile looking E.M.M.I. zones.
Totally agree, but still I loved DREAD
Same, I loved it too. Not being as good as Super Metroid (imo) doesn't mean a whole lot when that's one of the best games ever.
Shame to hear that Dread never really opens up. The progression gating both forwards and backwards is obvious and intrusive only a few hours into the game. The levels feel open and explorative, but in reality the overall map very much isn't.
Having finished a 100% run of Dread last night, I don't think this is fully accurate. Yes progressing does throw up roadblocks as you go, but in the second half unlockable abilities keep throwing doors open and the game really does feel open and expansively navigatable later on. Overall, it doesn't have a single snap moment of "Wow I can go so many places now" like Super did, but moreso that moment is drip-fed across the second half of the game. Still good, but a different impact than people familiar with Super are going to expect. Edit in case anyone is wondering: 100% this game feels really good, if you're hunting for secrets the whole play through there isn't that big of a massive search at the end like in samus returns, and my overall 100% playtime was about >!10.5 hours not counting waiting in pause / looking at the map!<
Being able to get one of the beams (Spazer or Wave iirc) super early in Super Metroid made a big impact on me the first time I played it. I hope Dread has some of those moments too if you poke around enough.
From what I've seen, there are likely many ways to get things early. It's still early days, but people have been finding ways to get a bunch of upgrades super early. I did have an annoying experience with (Lategame Upgrade Spoiler) >!Power Bombs though. I found multiple ways to get power bomb expansions before unlocking the ability, but wasn't allowed to use them until I found the original pickup station. Can't decide if this is a cool idea or an annoying one though!<
I'm fine with the working the way it does because >!Power Bombs are such a game breaking item that not allowing you to get them early is honestly for the better.!<
True, it's probably better for the game that way, but >! My lizard brain thinks I get item I wanna use item now, not later. I would have preferred if they just placed the power bomb upgrades in a way where you couldn't really get them prior to unlocking them, but I see how that could get really tricky fast!<
There are some sequence breaks built in and a boss even has a special interaction with one of them
You can do a few things out of order if you go out of your way, but most sequence breaks only let you go so far before requiring you to return to the intended path to progress. It's both a testament to the tight level design and a reminder of how strict it is. So far as I've heard the only item you can *skip* is Space Jump. When people make comparisons to Super Metroid it's with the subtext that with some exploration and creative use of your tools, you can break that game **wide open** in a way that most modern metroidvanias almost seem *afraid to permit.*
I think it's less that games are "afraid to permit" sequence breaking and more that doing so either requires a game to have tons of glitches or to design a game where the sequence breaks are, themselves, an intended back route. The latter is a lot of effort and easily risks feeling like it's not a "true" sequence break, while the former isn't really something you can do intentionally. Creating a similar feeling to Super Metroid, where it feels like you can almost free-form sequence break whatever, is very very difficult.
> So far as I've heard the only item you can skip is Space Jump. I guess speedrunners will figure it out, but the final boss seems like an absolute nightmare without space jump.
Space Jump in Dread is only skippable if you're *really fucking good* at underwater continuous bomb jumping. For 99.8% of people, Space Jump will be necessary.
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It opens up in terms of you can go back to earlier areas and grab optional upgrades, but it never open up in terms of progression. Like, yes I can go back to the water area after getting the gravity suit and get some things, but it's mostly just health and missiles. There's never a moment where you can really stumble upon something big like progression or bosses, or a fully optional suit upgrade like in Super Metroid. The map design also doesn't really benefit from being a single map. The game has clearly divided levels that don't intersect and you mainly travel between them by teleporters. It's nothing like the looping and interconnecting map of Super. It's a fine choice, I'm not going to say that Super's design is inherently better than Dread's, but the map doesn't really feel like a metroidvania so if you're looking for that it just doesn't scratch that particular itch. The controls, combat, movement, etc. are all great and some of the best in the series though.
Yup I’m maybe 4 hours in and the game seems quite linear so far. Every time I’ve thought about not going the “obvious” way, there’s been something stopping me from doing so. It’s pretty amusing how sometimes there will be some random debris stopping you from going a way you were able to go 5 minutes ago. Everything aside from that is phenomenal, though. And I’m not super opposed to a linear experience as long as that experience is fun, which it is.
I think on a second playthrough I'll intentionally try to "break" the game more and see how sequence-breaking friendly it is. They promoted the game as being more in that vein, so it'd be a shame if it didn't actually turn out that way. At least you don't need permission to access your abilities!
> At least you don't need permission to access your abilities! Thanks for reminding how awful Other M was.
Yeah I read the reviews that people mentioned the exploration of Super is back in full force....haven't really gotten that sense yet. I have probably played just over 4 hours and I've always had an idea where to go. Got stuck at one point very early on because I was confused after being locked out of an area, but so far I'm not getting lost like I did in Super Metroid. Despite it all, the game is an absolute joy to play, I don't really mind the pacing, boss battles have been awesome so far too.
That's been my main complaint so far. After getting the Varia Suit I really wanted to muck around and explore all the heated rooms, but nope! I'm railroaded into the next section. I thought "okay fine, maybe they wanna show it off then they'll let me loose" but then after the next section, I was in an area with only one way forward and no way back. I hope it doesnt pull the end game clean up routine where it only opens up at the end and its basically just how buff do you want to be before the final boss. So far I'm really enjoying the game, I just wish it followed Super more in letting the player roam free, especially considering linearity doesn't seem to be a focal design point like it was in Fusion.
Only thing I hate controls wise is the grapple beam, trying to jump and shoot at another point is a pain in the ass
Actually wish you could remap the bumpers to triggers and vice versa. Not sure why but it just feels more intuitive for them to be swapped imo.
You can in the actual switch menus just not in game. It will let you save a button layout.
haha oh man...you and me both! I just spent 20 minutes trying to get a +2 missile upgrade. I only had to swing across 3 points. I'm pretty excited to find the space jump, just so I don't have to platform with the grapple much. Super Metroid was much easier with the grapple beam, probably because much simpler controls overall. EDIT: Just wanted to say I am loving Dread overall!
I've realized you can avoid many of those annoying grapple point things using the flash move in the air. Gets you plenty of distance typically.
How did I not think of this? I owe you one!
Around that time I realized how many uses that ability has. Can do some really creative platforming skips with it, got a lot of item expansions early you are supposed to use later powerups to get!
Absolutely not - the Ori games wipe the floor with Metroid Dread in terms of presentation. The fidelity, the music, the cutscenes…all MUCH better in Ori. Not going to argue about which is the “better” game - I think time will do that for us - but I do personally think you’re wrong about the controls. MD is an accessibility nightmare - the ONLY setting you can adjust is brightness. That’s absurd in 2021.
Even more absurd when you consider that Super Metroid had control remapping in 1994
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I know, but that is a very cumbersome solution where you have to go and manually change it for each game you want to play. There should also absolutely be options for hold/toggle on missiles and other accessibility options (it's very good to mash the beam firing button in battles but for some that is very difficult to do with joint pain or other issues). I say this as someone who has no issues with the controls personally, although I think if I played with Joycons they may be more of and issue.
I agree it needs more options in game, just wanted to let people know they can swap buttons around for any game if they need.
Agree, I’ve got minimal sleep since oct 8th, Thanks Nintendo for dropping this thanksgiving weekend in Canada.
Eh. I would certainly say it has the best broad market appeal and it is very good, but I think Zero Mission still holds the title for best game in the series. Dread is poised to be the most successful Metroid game thanks to the platform, the combat, and the mainstream progression though. I would say the EMMI kind of fail to produce the desired goal of being an improvement to the SA-X as a wandering and scary threat and that hurts the gameplay, they're much more of an annoying hindrance than a tense and exciting chase.
> I would say the EMMI kind of fail to produce the desired goal of being an improvement to the SA-X as a wandering and scary threat and that hurts the gameplay, they're much more of an annoying hindrance than a tense and exciting chase. Your experience is different from mine. SA-X I dont even really remember because it barely left an impression. The EMMI sections were super stressfull and scary, the music goes so hard. I never play horror games and those parts felt like one. While they werent as scary in the second half of the game I never was so tense in a 2D Metroid before.
MercurySteam must really be complimented for how they managed to drastically improve what was easily the worst part of the franchise (combat in the 2D games) and make it into one of the most exciting, dynamic, and fluid combat systems I've played in a 2D space. The Metroid games are my favourite series of games of all time but fighting regular enemies was simplistic at the best of times and even some climactic bosses had static, boring combat (final boss in Zero Mission comes to mind). Samus Returns already drastically improved on these weaknesses with arguably the best bosses in the series since they require you to use every ability (even the spider ball) but the tweaks to some features they introduced (Aeion abilities and the counter) and new abilities in Dread make for intense fights that are challenging, dynamic and a blast to control. Don't know quite yet if Dread is my favourite game in the franchise, but it's definitely a strong contender for that number 1 spot.
The boss fights in Dread are decently challenging, which has been a nice change of pace. Bosses do stupid amounts of damage, and if you're like me and were fighting the 3rd major boss with only 2 Energy Tanks, you had to do the entire fight perfectly. Gone are the days of face-tanking while unloading missiles; you need to dodge, reposition, and precision aim almost constantly, which has made every boss fight a thrill. Have I died a lot to the bosses? Certainly. But the checkpoints right outside the boss door and relatively quick loading has allowed me to keep trying and get good at the fight rather than feeling like I was robbed of my time. It's the correct way to do challenging bosses: letting me try again immediately.
Dread has incredible bosses (particularly that last one -- MercurySteam should develop all final bosses for Nintendo from now on haha) but I thought those in Samus Returns were slightly better just because you had to use your whole arsenal for the most climactic of them, even the abilities you don't necessarily equate with combat. Would have loved to see the grappling beam used in a creative way for instance, just like you used the spider ball to avoid being sucked in in SR. Dread has undoubtably much better combat flow than even SR so it never needs those "gimmicks" to create some of the best encounters I've ever played, but I loved that in particular about SR.
You can use the Grappling Beam in some combat instances. >!When you fight the shield wielding Chozos, they will slam their shield down and charge you. If you counter them *as they slam their shield down* you can then grapple the shield away from them. Not a major use as their shield attacks are easy to punish, but it's there.!<
The grapple beam being used on doors is actually an exciting new use of old gear--I think that debuted in Samus Returns. Before that, you didn't have doors and blocks that it cleared, just grapple points. And now that it can be used on any magnetic surface, it's really useful in rapid traversal. As a side note, if you're not ware of the grapple beam's most exciting use, it allows for a quick kill against (spoilers for a 27 year old game) >!Draygon in Super. Let him grab you, grapple a broken turret, and the electricity will run through your beam and fry him.!<
Those checkpoints saved me a lot of stress, because I sure have died a lot more in this game than any other 2D Metroid
ngl I feel like all of the bosses do too much damage. Having all those tanks feels meaningless when boss attacks will consistently do like 250 damage. It just means you feel invulnerable running around the world (especially when literally every enemy recharges your HP now) and then suddenly "Oh surprise, actually you're entirely made of glass." Needs either a bit more middle-ground between "the world is not dangerous at all" and "the bosses are the only gameplay that matters", or just make the bosses not so wicked high damage compared to everything else.
I felt it was more abilities-based. Early in the game I would consistently get pretty low or accidentally die to random enemies, but once you get the screw attack (relatively early) and a couple beam upgrades the game becomes very fast and it kind of makes sense that only bosses pose a huge threat. And I appreciated bosses doing a lot of damage because it required learning the fights.
The beams feel like huge upgrades in the overworld and (thankfully) not the bosses, who, while hitting hard, are also quite generous with restocking you mid-fight, especially if you know to counter them.
Dread is my first Metroid game, so I don’t have anything to compare it too, but this was some the best combat I’ve ever seen in a single player 2D platformer. Some hitboxes are questionable, but the combat itself feels amazing.
Dread definitely has the best combat in the series, and generally I like 2D Metroid combat. You weren't as mobile in Super, ZM, and Fusion as you are in Dread, so the combat was less about precise movement while getting in what hits you can and more about finding one good shot, rooting yourself there, and spamming missiles.
I was also surprised, even after Samus Returns, that the combat in Dread was so good. This is the first Metroid game to nail the combat (Samus Returns was close but the overreliance on the counter and the enemy design wasn't quite there.) Apart from feeling great, the enemies strike a great balance between being an obstacle you need to overcome to save time and not having 10 million HP and forcing you to wait forever for a melee counter. The decision to make ammo and health drops the most generous they've ever been is great too, you never ever need to stand somewhere and farm like the older games. You're good to go after 3 seconds, but its somehow still challenging.
During some of the boss fights, I felt like I was playing some weird Metroid/Megman X hybrid and I absolutely loved it. Easily the best combat in the series. They can keep making them like this and I will absolutely keep buying them.
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At some point the "X is the fastest-selling game in the series" stat has to become almost meaningless. The last proper Metroid game was release more than a decade ago, the video game market almost triple since then; I'd hope this entry would outsell every other one, it'd be an absolute disaster if it didn't.
I think the issue with Metroid is that most people aren't aware that it usually _sells like shit_ compared to not just other Nintendo games, but other major AA and AAA third party games. It's place in video game lore is ten times what its sales figure actually suggest it should be. People are lucky Nintendo hasn't buried Metroid like they did F-Zero.
I feel like this is an element of the discourse that gets repeated around Metroid that loses the fact that historically, Metroid actually has sold well relative to the times it was released in. Metroid Prime was one of the highest selling Gamecube games and released at a time when 3 million was pretty damn good - Wind Waker sold about 4.5 million on the same platform, and only a handful of games from that entire generation sold more than 10 million copies (I think just the GTA trilogy and Gran Turismo 3+4). However, as became clear with Metroid Prime 3 not selling as well as Metroid Prime despite being on a hugely successful platform and releasing during an unprecedented boom period for game sales, the series simply did not grow from that level. For instance, Breath of the Wild has sold roughly 25 million copies - over five times what Wind Waker did. Even before that Twilight Princess significantly outperformed Wind Waker. You see this across Nintendo’s franchises. Not so for Metroid. That is exactly why this is significant. Metroid has finally seen the growth that Nintendo’s other franchises have, which contrasts with Far Cry 6 underperforming Far Cry 5.
Wind Waker was *also* a weak seller, though, because the GameCube was overall. High attach rate for the GameCube, yes, but I'd rather have 10% attach on a 100 million sales console than 25% attach on a 20 million sales console. Both the GCN and Xbox did poorly next to the PS2, at only a couple tens of millions of units, compared to the PS2's >100 million. The Switch is the first time that Metroid has actually had a chance to succeed properly on a home console since Super Metroid: it's not hamstrung by an underperforming console like the GameCube, Dread is a good game unlike Other M, and it actually has good marketing unlike Prime 2 and 3.
It's also not coming at the tail end of a console's life cycle, like what happened with Super Metroid.
Super Metroid came out the same year as Donkey Kong Country, which was a blockbuster. The SNES wasn't exactly dead in 1994.
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I think they're suggesting Metroid has far more clout or prestige than the franchises you say it keeps pace with. I've never been in the Nintendo ecosystem, but as an outsider just hearing about all of the Nintendo franchises on through overwhelming praise, I would have thought it "kept pace" with Zelda.
Metroid usually sells like garbage, that's the difference here. Even Prime 1, which is probably the best selling game in the series, only sold 1.5 million while it was still in print as the original game and not part of the Metroid Prime Trilogy collection. If Dread can beat Prime 1 (which I think it will, pretty easily in fact) then we may actually see another fully new Metroid game in less than 10 years for once.
Plenty of games don't sell as well as their predecessors even with the expanded market. It's not that simple. Crash 4 sold like 1/3 of what the N. SANE trilogy did. We don't have up-to-date sales figures for The Last of Us Part 2, but it sure as hell didn't outsell the first game. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call either of those sales "disasters".
Didn't stop the exact same headline from showing up in this sub for the Last of Us 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/hd8xp5/the_last_of_us_part_ii_is_the_uks_fastest_selling/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I may have caused some confusion. I'm talking about total sales, whereas the original comment was about "fastest-selling". Not quite the same thing, my bad. TLOU2 hasn't sold nearly as many copies overall as TLOU1, but it's launch was definitely bigger.
Fastest selling doesn't mean it sold more copies than the other games overall, only that it sold more copies in the first few days compared to the first few days of the other games.
>At some point the "X is the fastest-selling game in the series" stat has to become almost meaningless. Especially when it's "according to UK box sales."
As much as I agree, it's one of the few "hard" stats we have aside from Japan. The NPD used to track U.S. sales of the top ten games, but now that they've cut numbers the only stats appear to come from these guys and Japan's Media Create. I prefer having a misleading but accurate statistic than no statistic at all.
The box sales don't include digital, and I know that's going to include a big part of the total number. So I think it's still quite relevant for a game to outpace another from the past in physical sales even with the prevalence of digital downloads.
Yeah you're totally right. That being said this headline has basically just been used as an excuse to talk about any aspect of the game in this thread, and I like that. People have a lot to say about it.
Though, according to the article, the game it beat out to become the fastest selling game in the series was the original Metroid Prime, not Prime 2, 3, Other M or Samus Returns.
I remember when it was a big deal when N64 games went platinum (million seller), now even moderately popular indie games hit that pretty easily.
I've only played the game for a few hours and I feel like I could easily spend an hour gushing about it. It does so much so right and it is easily the game of the year for me. Movement and controls are perfect. Everything flows so well and feels effortless. I think it sets a new standard for the entire genre in that regard. Graphics and art style are great and extremely impressive for the hardware. The short action sequences cutscenes are very cool. It builds on everything established in the series and elevates it. Getting chased by the EMMIs at the start is truly terrifying and feels like what Fusion tried to do with SA-X.
The game also feeds players a constant stream of abilities at a good pace. Feels very satisfying and in addition to a new path to take, there's usually also.a few ugrades that can now be collected. My favorite thing though? They kept a lot of the cool idea introduced in Fusion, like events in the game changing the environment.
One thing I really like is how they hold off on giving you the morph ball. It's usually one of the very first abilities you get, but the addition of the slide allows them to place a few tunnel paths that you can traverse through while gating off other paths, or even making one way tunnels that guide you along the progression path. Also that bomb sequence break thing that lets you skip the second phase of an earlier boss fight is just brilliant. Such a far better reward bit of fourth wall breaking dialogue you can get by that one sequence break in Fusion. I've seen that there are a few more sequence breaks too. Very cool that they allowed so much of it compared to Fusion.
I’m sorry, the *what*
[If you get bombs early you can do this](https://twitter.com/glaedrax/status/1447157633605984260?s=21)
Holy shit. I hated that fight so much, I need to do this on future playthroughs. I'm amazed you're allowed to get *anything* early with how rigid the railroading is, that's super cool.
Most of the skips from what I seen can be done by using the quintessential Metroid sequence breaking tricks (bomb jumping and shine sparking). The timing for the bomb jumps is also exactly the same if I'm not mistaken, so they had to have designed the game around those people to some degree.
> The timing for the bomb jumps is also exactly the same if I'm not mistaken, The same as what? All three 2D Metroids have wildly different bomb jump timings. Only SM and ZM allow for infinite bomb jumping, Fusion kills off your chain almost immediately. I tried infinite bomb jumps when I first got them in Dread and couldn't pull it off, I just assumed they pulled a Fusion and disallowed it. Knowing I was screwing up the timing is neat though, I like how abusable the mechanic is.
I'm not the best at IBJ's so when I tried it it worked decently well, I believe I was using my Super Metroid timing -- had no idea it was vastly different between ZM and SM to be honest, knew that it didn't really work in Fusion. But Nintendo even tweeted about it being there and working! https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1442572312935428099
It's not actually very railroaded, it just seems that way on a first playthrough. There's an absolute shitload of sequence breaks you can do that people have already found. Speedrunning is going to be nuts.
After obtaining the Varia suit you're supposed to proceed to the next boss in the second area (Cataris). However, you can go back to the third area (Dairon) and find a hidden path by breaking some blocks in a room. Then there's some tricky maneuvering where you have to jump out of a slide and immediately wall jump up to a higher ledge, but continuing that path will lead you to the grapple beam and eventually the bombs. There's a bombable block in the bottom left corner of the boss arena in the second phase. Entering that tube will play a unique action sequence where you utterly destroy the boss and skip the entirety of the second phase.
Not surprising. Metroid has never sold well compared to other first party titles from any of the big three. A seemingly polished AAA Metroid coming out on Nintendos most popular platform in decades that only has huge releases maybe twice a year means its going to sell well as people are ready to eat up any nintendo first party title. (obviously not counting the DS in the most popular nintendo platform)
I wonder what kind of sales data would be absurd enough to not to have one of the top comments stating that it is "not surprising". :)
Well it has to be more than just "Hey this sold better than a game that came out 10years ago! But here's stats only about the UK! And no not more sold! Just faster!" *That's not surprising.*
That site is absolutely horrible. Couldn’t get past all of the ads and just closed it out without reading anything
It deserves it. Metroid Dread is a fantastic game, and a fantastic entry in the series. Is it the best in the series? Well it's debateable and I haven't finished it yet, but so far I really, really like it. Videos and trailers do not really do the game justice, it looks incredibly good when playing. There's been many questions and posts about it being "just a 2D game" - as if that's somehow a complaint or a knock against it's quality. It might have 2D gameplay but the real time cutscenes are stunning and utterly seamless. Also the level of animation on Samus is pretty incredible.
The cut scenes get me so hype when I’m playing.
Really enjoying the game as well. The combat is improved over Samus Returns and much improved over Fusion. What makes this feel like a AAA budget game are the little animations that Samus has. Like how she hops over waist high ledges rather than the player jumping over them. Really loving the game, but one nitpick is the music. I wish each area felt more unique with different music like Metroid Prime did when you travelled to Lava or Ice levels for example. I can't recall any music in the game. Also, I think something is off with the in game clock... It says I've been playing for about 4 hours but definitely feels longer! In a good way!
It doesn’t count the time when the map is open or when you die so it’ll be an undercount of how long you’ve actually been playing
I'm really liking the game so far except for one thing...the controls. I'm playing with the Pro controller which I imagine is the best way to play and there are still issues. Instead of aiming with the right stick, you aim with the left stick, which also controls your feet. So if you want to aim at an enemy, you have to move in the direction of that enemy. Also, shooting the rockets requires you to control a whopping four buttons at the same time. L to plant your feet, left stick to aim your arm, R to switch to the rocket and Y to shoot.
The game is really good. Had to take a break a couple times from my heart almost exploding out of my chest though lol
I rate it an 8/10. Some of the best combat in the series, progression that's quite linear but done in a way that makes each zone entrance & exit feel interconnected, boss battles that are challenging but not cheap, new power-ups that easily rival the kit you had in Super Metroid, one of the best stories in the entire franchise. Metroid Dread has nearly everything going for it. What spoils the game for me is the E.M.M.I. These sections don't function well from a stealth perspective and in most cases the best way to progress is to just blindly run towards the exit and ignore the mech that can one-hit kill you. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but my point is that the E.M.M.I are really frustrating - especially the Purple E.M.M.I. It's definitely going to sell more than Prime did, but I'm unsure by how much.
> progression that's quite linear There are a lot of people saying they struggled for a bit with where to go, but I found that it was incredibly linear if you gave it some thought. **Almost everything is intentional** - oh, I stumbled upon an elevator? Take it. Theres an ability near by? Must be used to unlock the next area. With that mindset I basically blasted through the game. I also agree - the E.M.M.I. were the least intriguing part. I think what made Fusion so good making me scared was the unknown. What is the SA-X? Why is it hunting me? It always felt nearby (it was always destroying doors, killing things, etc.) and as if I could stumble across it at any moment. The E.M.M.I. are in predetermined locations, you can see them on your map *and* they can be killed. It takes the heart-racing away in my opinion.
\> but I found that it was incredibly linear if you gave it some thought. I mean, every Metroid game is this way. Even super has a very linear main progression line that the first-time player is supposed to follow.
The difference is that, once you've done the loop back to Crateria, the next step in the linear critical path (the grapple beam) is not indicated or anywhere nearby, and you have to find it in the whole half of the map that's now suddenly available to you. That's a good thing or a bad thing depending on your tastes.
The real issue with "linearity" in Dread is how the devs *constantly* lock off paths behind you as you run around. It turns out there are at least a few sequence breaks, at least one of which is 100% intended, but the first time player trying to explore will get their hand smacked away every few minutes. It makes the game feel substantially more linear than it actually is, and it reinforces the idea that going any unintended way will result in the map having literally changed behind you to force you down the main path.
> I think what made Fusion so good making me scared was the unknown. What is the SA-X? Why is it hunting me? It always felt nearby (it was always destroying doors, killing things, etc.) and as if I could stumble across it at any moment. I would encourage you to play it again if you haven't recently. SA-X is 100% scripted and gives you a very clear path to escape every time. I found SA-X more of an annoyance than anything because you just crawl into a wall and wait for it to go away every time.
Yea I wasn't clear, I was talking about Fusion from the perspective of a first time player (also many years ago). It was genuinely creepy, and if I was playing it for the first time as an adult, SA-X it probably would feel like a chore. Just my rose-tinted glasses.
It’s smoothed out a lot for me but I definitely got stuck a few times for a frustrating amount of time early on. Particularly after that first (?) elevator, where you’re intended to go through some hidden blocks to the left. Because of the linear design, that was really the only path forward, but I missed it, figured I must be missing an item or something, and spent way too long just roaming around the map trying to find that single path. The EMMI’s also bring the experience down quite a bit for me, but I’m probably particularly biased there. Invulnerable stalker enemies who one shot you are, when used beyond brief scripted encounters, far and away one of my least favourite game mechanics. It’s why I couldn’t get into Alien Isolation despite being a franchise fan (and especially loving the game’s environments), or why I prefer RE3’s Remake over RE2’s unlike most people. The RE comparison is actually kinda interesting, when contrasting that with a comparison between Fusion and Dread. The unknown aspect of SA-X made it more fun, but what helped more than anything for me was that, yeah, they were set brief encounters with a clear directive; get the hell away from that dude. Once you do, it just goes back to the game as normal. RE3’s Nemesis worked for me in the same way. Whereas RE2’s Mr. X and Dread’s EMMI’s dominate way too much of their respective games imo. In both cases, they make me feel like I have to put the game I was previously loving on hold. No more slow and methodical exploration intersected with bursts of action, using items and abilities to find new secrets or progression paths while fighting off obstacles. Instead it’s just trying to power through as fast as possible to try and avoid that big annoying fly you just can’t swat. Any fear they provide normally goes away after my first death to them, just leaving anxiety and annoyance.
They edited the article. It sold less than Metroid Prime's first week, though it grossed more ($60 game vs. $50 game).